Yankees' World Series Chances are the Weirdest They've Ever Been

When everyone is healthy, the New York Yankees should be the unquestioned best team in the American League. Not that that's saying much in a league that would even make the early-2000s NBA Eastern Conference blush, but it's still something.

The problem? Not everyone is healthy. Not even close, and every time the Yankees start to make progress on the injury front, another catastrophe happens.

Case in point: Carlos Rodon is coming off the injured list to start against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night. But at the same time, Max Fried hit the IL for the second time this season due to an elbow bruise.

Of course, it hardly stops there.

Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger are all sidelined. Judge is recovering from a rib stress fracture. Stanton is working his way back from multiple calf injuries. Bellinger is rehabbing a hamstring pull.

Stanton and Bellinger have tentative early September timelines. Judge just started playing catch, which is great, but with just over a month remaining in the regular season, you do have to wonder just how ready he will be for October.

Barring an unprecedented collapse down the stretch, the Yankees will be in the playoffs. And they could be an absolutely terrifying opponent for any American League squad ... or really any club not named the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Or, New York could be Wild Card Series fodder depending on who is actually available for the team when the postseason begins.

We know that Fried will probably be out the rest of the year. The initial elbow bruise he suffered back in mid-May kept him sidelined for over two months, so if this injury is similar, Fried probably won't return to the mound until 2027.

That would still give the Yankees a very impressive rotation consisting of Cam Schlittler, Gerrit Cole, Rodon, Ryan Weathers and Will Warren, so they could absolutely still make it to a World Series even with Fried — who doesn't have the best playoff track record, by the way — on the shelf.

But the lineup is the real question.

Should all of Judge, Stanton and Bellinger be healthy and raring to go by October, New York should certainly be the odds- on favorite to advance to the Fall Classic. Sorry, but I'm still not buying the Tampa Bay Rays as some kind of juggernaut, and the rest of the AL doesn't offer a single scary foe.

The Yankees, on the other hand, could become AL stalwarts within the blink of an eye if they get a clean bill of health.

I'm not sure I can remember a Yankees squad that had this much variance this late in the season. It's truly something, and it has the Bronx faithful on pins and needles.

Hopefully, New York can actually get some positive injury news for once and return all of its big boppers in time for a playoff run ... and a potential Dodges rematch.